brennabean 's review for:

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

DID NOT FINISH: 75%

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I gave My Name Is Lucy Barton a fair shot, but after making it nearly 75% through, I realized I was still waiting for a hook that never came. The prose is lovely — sparse and quiet in that literary way — but the story meanders so much that I struggled to stay engaged. It felt more like a series of disconnected reflections than a cohesive narrative. While I can see the emotional threads and subtle character work, it just didn’t land for me. Sometimes quiet books hit hard — this one just faded into the background.